The Issue of Exploding Sinks
by jiuhuyyur
Summary: Everybody has their issues. Percy's just happens to be that sinks explode when he's angry.


**The Issue of Exploding Sinks**

**Summary: **Everybody has their issues. Percy's just happens to be that sinks explode when he's angry.

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Percy Jackson series or the characters in it.

**Pairings: **Percy/ Annabeth

**General Warnings: **Perverted man near the end, shenanigans, occasional sprinkles of angst, weird sentences, present tense.

**Extra Notes: **Spawned from this prompt: Plumber from three apartments down regularly fixes sink AU. I'll post it on ao3 as soon as I can.

**UPDATE: **This fic is now on ao3!

**MANY THANKS TO MY BETA FOR THIS FIC, APAccidentalAccount. If you're in the The Last of Us fandom, go check her out. Seriously. **

**. . .**

The first time Percy gets angry in his brand new apartment, the water pipe in his sink explodes. Luckily, there's a plumber three apartments down from him. Her name is Annabeth, and she fixes the sink for free just because she can, which is fantastic. It's also slightly terrifying, because Annabeth is a _very attractive lady._

Percy hesitates to say she is hot, partially because she would probably punch him in the face, but mostly because she honestly isn't. Not to Percy, at least. _Hot _is a woman pale and blonde and fake, posed for a picture so that her thinness looks pretty and not painful, so that the camera flashes in just the right way to accentuate her curves. Annabeth doesn't need studio lighting and harsh diets to look nice. She needs a grubby t-shirt and a wrench, which is exactly what she shows up at Percy's apartment in the first time they meet.

His jaw may or may not drop when he opens the door to greet her. She takes in his open-mouthed expression, raises an eyebrow, and breezes past him into the apartment. "I'm Annabeth. Your kitchen sink needs to be fixed," she says.

Percy blinks and closes the door. "Um. I'm Percy. It's pretty mangled, so good luck."

Her blonde hair is done up in a simple ponytail, and it swishes around her neck as she turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Not going to offer to help?" she asks.

Percy laughs. "I'm not the plumber here. That's why I called you."

Annabeth smiles in a way that makes Percy think she might have kicked his teeth in had answered differently. "Good," she says, brisking her way into the kitchen and leaving Percy to slump bonelessly against his apartment door. Of all of the plumbers in the world who would just happen to live ten feet from his apartment, Percy gets the good-looking one. Of course.

He is either extremely lucky or extremely screwed.

Percy exhales and rubs his sweaty palms against the fabric of his jeans before meandering toward the kitchen, where Annabeth is crouched down in front of the sink.

"So what made you want to be a plumber?" he asks.

She grunts lightly, pulling at some pipe or another, and answers, "It isn't so much that I _wanted_ to as it is that I got offered the job and couldn't afford to refuse."

Percy hums in acknowledgment, folding his arms and leaning against the door frame. He crosses one ankle over the other and looks away when Annabeth pulls at whatever it is again with another grunt. After a few seconds of tugging, she leans back on her heels and swipes a hand across her forehead.

"What about you? Got some sort of job that you enjoy yet?" she asks, rising to inspect the drain of the sink. Percy unfolds his arms to rub at his neck awkwardly, a small grin tugging his lips.

"No, not really," he says, "I mean, I've had a couple of jobs, but...they didn't work out too well. I'm looking for another one to work until I finish school."

Annabeth pauses in her study to straighten and look at him, oddly disappointed. "School?" she asks, and then mumbles, "You _look_ about my age...huh. Too bad."

"Yeah," Percy says excitedly, "I'm finishing up my college courses online. I'm going to be a marine biologist - hopefully within the next year or two."

Annabeth smiles at his enthusiasm, a tinge of relief twisting the corners of her lips. Percy eyes her curiously but doesn't press.

"How long have you wanted to be a marine biologist?" she asks.

Percy rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, thinking. "Probably since...second grade, I think? I remember having a lesson about orcas in science and that was it. I was hooked." He laughs suddenly. "Every Saturday after that, I'd beg my mom to take me to the library. We'd check out six and seven books at a time, all about marine animals and the different underwater ecosystems - basically anything to do with water, even lakes and ponds. It was great."

Annabeth offers a bittersweet smile. "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life," she quotes.

Percy's eyebrows raise. "Wow," he says after a few seconds. "Did you accidentally eat your high school philosophy textbook?"

"Just the parts on hand-to-hand," she says wryly.

Percy blinks.

"Your _philosophy book _had instructions on hand-to-hand combat?" he asks.

Annabeth pretends to inspect the sink one last time. "My education was...specialized," she murmurs.

"Oh," Percy says quietly.

They don't say anything else, and Annabeth leaves shortly after.

**. . . **

The second time Percy gets angry in his new apartment, it's late at night and nothing breaks, but he calls Annabeth anyway. She lounges on his couch, simultaneously filling out a job application and lending an ear as Percy rants and raves about some Gabe guy.

After fifteen minutes of continuous, irritated circle-pacing and a dash cathartic yelling-at-the-air, he finally collapses on the couch next to her.

"Feel better?" she asks. Percy huffs.

"No," he says petulantly.

"Too bad," Annabeth hums, hiding an amused grin. They fall into a comfortable silence for a short while before Percy slumps his shoulders defeatedly.

"Okay, so I _might_ feel better. Just a little bit," he mutters.

"Only slightly, of course," she says.

She absolutely does not raise her application papers to her face in order to hide a smirk, and Percy absolutely does not jab an elbow in her ribs. Likewise, they never end up kicking the coffee table into a dusty corner and having an impromptu wrestle on the living room floor.

None of this happens, in the same way that they don't collapse into sleep on the couch together later that night, bumped and bruised and happy, with Annabeth splayed over her paperwork and Percy leaning his head against her shoulder.

Because that would be absurd. Clearly.

**. . . **

Annabeth gets the job. Percy hugs her and spins her in the air, laughing. They bake and then eat a blue cake while watching _Sharknado: the Second One_ in celebration.

She laughs and smears blue icing on her cheek by accident and is happier than she can remember being in years.

**. . .**

The sink explodes again even though Percy hadn't been angry. He tells Annabeth this over the phone, his voice shakier than usual.

If Annabeth borders on frantic in her toolkit-gathering, it doesn't mean anything.

She doesn't understand why he apparently thinks that his anger causes sinks to explode, but she shrugs and resolves to ask later if it comes up. She has leaned that Percy is a pretty strange guy, and if he does something weird, well, you just kind of have to roll with it.

It's not as if Annabeth is entirely normal herself, so she has no room to judge.

When she arrives, one quick glance at the sink tells her all she needs to know. Seaweed is strewn all around Percy's kitchen, and is still oozing out of a busted pipe sluggishly.

Annabeth gives her friend a strange look. "_Why_ was there so much seaweed in your sink?"

Percy turns to her with bewildered eyes. "I don't even eat seaweed," he whispers, gazing around the kitchen as if it were a battlefield littered with fallen soldiers. Annabeth is slightly alarmed. She puts a gentle hand on his arm.

"Please don't tell me you're about to have a breakdown over seaweed," she says.

Percy shudders and turns away. "I just...I just really don't like things that belong in the sea being on land."

Annabeth tells him to go into the living room and calm himself down, because he's actually _shaking, _and she is so not prepared to deal with emotional Percy. Especially when he's getting emotional over things that he probably shouldn't, but whatever. Everybody has their issues.

She fixes the sink and cleans up the mess, even if it makes her feel like a housewife, because she's afraid that Percy might start crying if he has to.

Annabeth sits with him on the couch when she's done and turns on an oceanic documentary. Percy very determinedly does not look anywhere near the direction of the kitchen, and she doubts that he will for a while. Annabeth slings an arm over his shoulders and doesn't comment when they begin to shake with silent tears. She simply keeps her arm where it is and offers what comfort she can.

It isn't much. She hasn't been the comforting type for a long while now.

(Everybody has their issues).

**. . .**

Percy shuffles over to Annabeth's apartment, helps cook, and eats with her for a solid two months after that.

Somehow, between the time after they feel comfortable talking about it and before Percy starts eating at his own place again, he gains himself a nickname.

**. . .**

The third time Percy gets angry in his apartment, the sink explodes once more. He had been standing next to it at the time, and shows up at Annabeth's door drenched and unamused.

"I'm sorry," he says as soon as she opens the door.

Annabeth blinks at his appearance, but quickly figures out what happened because she's unreasonably smart, and laughs unrepentantly until Percy puffs out his cheeks and glares at her. She laughs harder and studiously ignored the way his wet t-shirt clings to his body.

"Don't do that," she snorts, "It makes you look like a drowned kitten."

Percy sticks his tongue out at her. "It's the effort that counts, not the execution," he says snootily.

Annabeth's eyebrows raise.

"Who's been eating philosophy textbooks now, Seaweed Brain?" she grins, bracing a shoulder against the doorframe. Percy drops the high-and-mighty act and grumbles wordlessly under his breath, flashing a dirty look at her from beneath his bangs.

Annabeth smirks and trots into her apartment to retrieve a toolkit. "Go on ahead," she calls, knowing without looking that Percy is still standing by the door, looking awkward and lost. "Take a shower while I fix the sink. And stop breaking it, you brute!"

They realize the flaw in this plan when Percy comes out of the bathroom with a only towel around his waist, flushing red and scowling at the ground.

Annabeth sees him and remembers that she has never been a woman who lets what she wants slip on past her. _You know what, _she thinks. _Screw it._

She kisses him flush on the lips.

(It's the one and only time she's grateful for having ADHD).

**. . .**

Four weeks and six coffee dates later, Percy gets angry in his not-so-new apartment for a fourth time. Annabeth stares at the sink exasperatedly as he toes the ground, cheeks flushing. "I'm just going to leave a toolkit here," she declares. Percy doesn't protest.

It's the first step in a very long moving-in process that neither of them notice.

**. . .**

The fifth time Percy's sink explodes, Annabeth is angry. Very angry. Not at Percy, who has to physically restrain her so that she doesn't punch a fat, disgusting man through a wall.

No, she is angry - _furious_ - at Gabe Ugliano. He smirks at her from his position on Percy's couch, where he has been seated for the past two and a half hours.

She's been home for three minutes, and already Annabeth knows that she's going to have to burn that couch.

"Now, now, young lady. I'm not asking for much. Just some cash, really," Gabe directs his attention back to Percy. "Can't you spare a bit of change for the guy who treated you so good as a kid?"

Percy closes his eyes and his hand unknowingly slides up to a spot on his head. Annabeth's breath catches in her throat as he absently rubs one of the few scars that he has refused point blank to talk about.

Gabe sees the motion as well. A slick, nasty grin spreads on his face before he shifts his attention to Annabeth and it curls lecherously.

He takes a moment to slowly trail his eyes up and down her body before saying, "Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to..._other_ forms of payment."

Percy's hands spasm and curl into fists even as he very calmly says, "I'm going to give you fifteen seconds, Gabe. _Leave_."

Annabeth is smart. Smart enough to have never seen the inside of a prison cell, for all of the illegal things she would never confess to having done over the years. Smart enough to know that Percy does not make idle threats.

So when she curls her fingers around a wrench while Percy quietly counts down and Gabe doesn't move, she knows what she's doing.

When she smashes it on the side of Gabe's head with just enough force to knock him unconscious, she knows what she's doing.

When she pulls on a pair of gloves, snags his fat wrists, and presses his palms to her breasts, waist, and backside, she knows what she's doing.

When she calls the police and says, in a shaky, teary voice, "A man just broke into my apartment and assaulted me. Please hurry. I don't want him to wake up," and adds a silent _ever_ before hanging up, she knows what she's doing.

And when Percy tells her, as she watches the gloves burn in the fireplace while waiting for the police to arrive, "You're terrifying. I love you," Annabeth grins.

She doesn't mind having done it. Not for a second.

"I love you, too," she says.

**. . . **

"So I used to be a pretty hardcore criminal."

"...I can talk to fish."

**. . .**

(Their children are proper delinquents, adored by every adult because they were raised by their mother, who is an amazing deceptionist and an even better teacher).

(She also happens to be worshipped as the neighborhood goddess by way of homemade pie magic).

(Her husband laughs from the sidelines and routinely smuggles lobsters from restaurants back to the ocean).

(Life is good).


End file.
